


Love and Be Silent

by RandyPandy



Series: Deep in the Realms [1]
Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: If | Fire Emblem: Fates, Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: Caeldori and Cordelia are the same person, Character Study, Crack Treated Seriously, F/M, Hinoka!Caeldori, Nohr | Conquest Route, Selena!Siegbert, Stahl!Severa, With something Revelation-esque afterwards
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-03
Updated: 2020-04-03
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:40:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23457967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RandyPandy/pseuds/RandyPandy
Summary: She would have to throw Princess Caeldori of Hoshido away, and embrace Cordelia, Pegasus Knight of Ylisse.It was all she could do.
Relationships: Chrom/Tiamo | Cordelia (one-sided), Hinoka/Tsubaki | Subaki, Luna | Selena/Marx | Xander, Sort | Stahl/Tiamo | Cordelia
Series: Deep in the Realms [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1709014
Comments: 6
Kudos: 28





	Love and Be Silent

**Author's Note:**

> This would not leave my head until I finished writing it. Maybe more will get written for Rhajat and Gaius?

Caeldori had been born during wartime.

With her mother being Hoshido's own Princess Hinoka, and her father being Subaki, retainer of Princess Sakura and of noble breeding, the potential heir to Hoshido's throne had been tucked away into the Deeprealms. Her parents had given the servants sent to raise her enough money to buy a house near a kingdom in the Deeprealm.

Her name was 'Caeldori' and she was born on July 6, but in the Deeprealm, to the people there, her name was given out as 'Cordelia' and her birthday shifted to July 7, simply to keep her safe.

While she wished that her parents had been around more, she could say that her life hadn't been bad. Her mother's servants were wonderful foster parents, though she had very few friends. However, her best friend being a local girl named Sumia, and the two of them had made a pact to be friends forever.

She only somewhat understood the war that her parents were fighting: her parents were proud Pegasus Knights, fighting against a country that was unjustly invading them. And yet whenever they visited her, despite the shadows that were in their eyes, they always looked delighted to see her, no matter how long it had been for her.

It was the war's fault that she wasn't seeing her parents as often. And seeing the war in the Deeprealm that she was in also showed her how horrible things really could be, and that this Deeprealm wasn't as peaceful as her parents had thought. But most of the war was overseas, so she thankfully didn't have to worry too much about it.

So, when she was a teenager, she decided that she was going to do something about it.

Escaping the Deeprealm wasn't going to be a possibility, but after pleading and begging her guardians, they had reluctantly allowed her to go to the nearby city, Ylisstol, and, as 'Cordelia', sign up as a recruit into their army. Once she was properly trained, she felt, she would be able to help her parents end the war sooner and rejoin them.

A series of events and her lack of running skills led her to joining the Pegasus Knights, the only thing that she had been uncertain about; her parents were _perfect_ Pegasus Knights. She couldn't hold a candle to them. And yet, that was where fate had taken her.

So be it.

She would become a Pegasus Knight that would make them proud.

* * *

During a simple scouting mission, Cordelia noticed something out of the flicker of her eye, and frowned. Was there something there? She moved forward to investigate, gripping her lance. If it was bandits, then she would take care of them quickly!

An arrow whizzed through the air out of nowhere, hitting her pegasus Aurora, and she gasped, the pegasus whinnying as it desperately flapped its wings and fell to the ground. "Oof!" She grunted as she tumbled into the ground.

What had even hit her?! There wasn't something there-- wait. A flicker of a purple haze. She grabbed her lance and stood up, desperately hoping to defend herself. She wasn't the most experienced fighter, and she wasn't sure how she was going to fight something she couldn't see, but she had to try!

Her foot buckled underneath her, and she desperately wished that her parents were there.

However, her death never came. When she opened her eyes (when had she clenched them shut?), she found herself staring up at a young man about her age, his sword out in front of him. He had short blue hair, and a mark on his shoulder. Prince Chrom of Ylisse, the country in this Deeprealm.

"Are you alright?" Chrom asked her, holding his hand out. Starstruck by the daring save, Caeldori managed a squeak and a nod as she accepted his hand and stood up. A handsome prince rushing to the rescue of a woman... it had been just like something out of her romance novels.

"Th-Thank you," she whispered, feeling her cheeks burn.

_Oh no._

* * *

Where were her parents?

The last time they had come to visit her, they had looked exhausted, and devestated, but they had smiled when they had seen her, and had told her the news. The war with Nohr had ended, and her parents were now the King and Queen of Hoshido (her uncles... had died...?). That made Caeldori the heir, and her cousin Rhajat (wait, she had a cousin?) the second heir.

But there was still danger, they had said. So she still had to stay here.

She'd accepted it at the time; with the war over, surely that meant they would at least _visit_ her? And she would be able to show off everything that she had learned about riding a Pegasus to her parents, and they would soar in the skies above Hoshido and Ylisse as a family.

This kept her going for days. Weeks. Months. _Years_.

But after that visit, every time Caeldori went back to the house that her parents had left her in, the servants told her that her parents had not come to visit, and even they had taken jobs given that the financial backing of Caeldori's parents had completely stopped. Even if it had taken _months_ in between visits while she had been growing up, they had never taken literal _years_ before...

Eventually, Caeldori realized something.

Her mother and father were not coming back. She had initially believed to be perfect, to be unfallible, but now... now she knew the truth. They had either abandoned her, which perfect parents would never do to their kids, or they had died or were otherwise indisposed, which would never have happened had they been unfallible. Those were the only possible explanations as to why they would not come back for her.

And if she was to continue on, she would have to make a life for herself here. She already had started, given that time didn't wait for parents to visit, but she had always felt torn over her identities.

Now, she would have to throw Princess Caeldori of Hoshido away, and embrace Cordelia, Pegasus Knight of Ylisse.

It was all she could do.

* * *

In the wake of the war against Gangrel, the Ylissean Council had ordered Chrom to find a _proper_ wife (or they would choose a woman amongst the Ylissean populace _for_ him), and Cordelia had bit her lip, hard, to prevent herself from speaking out.

Chrom had had several promising candidates: Sully, his childhood friend born into a long line of Ylissean Knights and loyal to the crown. Sumia, _her_ childhood friend and a wonderful Pegasus Knight from a well-reputed noble family. Maribelle, his sister's best friend and the daughter of the Duke of Themis. Olivia, a beautiful dancer that was Khan Basilio's adopted daughter. And Robin, his famous tactician and a war hero, who had led Ylisse to victory against Gangrel. It all depended on who exactly he had fallen in love with, whether she loved him, or whether they could love each other romantically.

Cordelia glanced down and quietly sighed.

As Princess Caeldori, she could have offered a political alliance between Hoshido and Ylisse, possibly the first alliance between two countries in different realms. She could have offered Hoshido's resources to help with the rebuilding of Ylisse and the era of peace. She could have combined the bloodline of Hoshido’s Dawn Dragon with Naga. But that was not to be. Caeldori, after all, no longer existed.

She was just Cordelia. A young Pegasus Knight from a common family who had just happened to be the only one that had survived the slaughter of the Ylissean Pegasus Corps. She'd been unable to save her comrades, and she had lost everyone that she had loved again. She had essentially been abandoned by her own family. How could she be a good wife for Chrom? How could she be a good mother to any children that they had?

And so, when Chrom proposed to Olivia, 'Cordelia' smiled, congratulated them, and pretended she didn't want to cry.

* * *

Occasionally, Cordelia went back to the house that she had been raised in to visit. It was the least she could do for the servants that had raised her -- honestly, by this point, she considered them parental figures more than anything else.

She was happy, though.

Her puppy crush that she had had on Prince Chrom had finally faded in the aftermath of the war with Grima, who would never rise in this world. She had finally found true love and had married her husband, Stahl, a fellow Shepherd and Ylissean Knight, and they had a child on the way. She and her future daughter, Severa, were still sorting through several rough patches, but their relationship was slowly improving.

Or at least, it had been, before Severa had run off. It was true that this particular Severa had not been birthed by her. But she was still her daughter as much as the child inside of her was.

Cordelia worried.

And Caeldori, for a moment, wondered if her parents had worried about her.

* * *

Severa came home.

Her (older) daughter looked exhausted, but her clothes were extremely nice and not at all dissimilar to what nobility would wear. She had probably gone shopping wherever she had gone.

Knowing how Severa could get, Cordelia had simply welcomed her home, and had given her some space for the next few days. Whenever she looked, though, Severa would be staring off into space, or at her younger toddler self. One look at her and Cordelia could tell that she had been away for _years_. What had happened with her, Owain, and Inigo?

Finally, Cordelia couldn't take it anymore. Her curiosity and her worry were burning.

"Severa, is everything okay?"

Those words seemed to be the trigger, and her daughter stared up at her, gritting her teeth. "Why didn't you tell me that we were Hoshidan?!"

Cordelia's stomach turned to ice. "I-I…"

"I went to Nohr to help Anankos, so I ended up in a damned war!" Severa burst out. "I fought against Hoshido in a war! That stupid Pegasus Knight, Subaki, looked and acted just like you! People kept asking me if I was related to him!" She clenched her fist. "Gods, when I learned the truth..."

"Severa, I-"

"I’m not done," her daughter snapped, and Cordelia shut her mouth. Nothing she could say would make Severa calm down until her daughter chose to do so. "Then after we won and Hinoka became Queen and _Subaki married her_ and they had a kid, they sent the kid -- the Crown Princess -- off to some Deeprealm. A princess who, curiously enough, _looked a lot like me_! I didn't get much time to think about it at first because Anankos chose that moment to attack and Inigo, Owain, and I were the only ones that knew enough to try to rally everyone together to fight him because Azura was dead!"

Cordelia didn't understand what was going on, only that _her daughter had fought against her parents in a war_. The battlefield had been granddaughter vs grandparents and none of them had known it. The horror that she felt could not be masked. If she had told her, would Severa have not gone against them?

Severa looked like she was trying not to cry, but she glared up at Cordelia. "...They came with us, you know. After the war between Nohr and Hoshido, after the war against Anankos, now that Hoshido and Nohr have a shaky alliance with each other. We went to Ylisstol so that Inigo and Owain could try to barter some kind of treaty between them and Ylisse with Chrom and Lucina’s help. And then I revealed that I was the daughter of Stahl and a red-haired woman named Cordelia, and they want to come here to visit once the peace talks are done." She wrinkled her nose as if she couldn’t believe she had done that.

Could her daughter _possibly_ drop anymore Arcthunders from the sky--

"By the way, I married the Crown Prince of Nohr and I have a son. His name is Siegbert. And he's adorable!"

…Yes.

* * *

Not long after meeting her son-in-law (Naga, _the King of Nohr_ was now her son-in-law; for someone that her parents had fought against, Xander was surprisingly kind and charming) and her grandson (Siegbert really was adorable like her daughter had said! He had her red hair and was sweet and shy), she finally saw her parents again.

Cordelia didn't know what to feel.

Her parents were _alive_. They looked several years older (which was a little jarring, as they had looked the same throughout her childhood), and exhausted, and there was _something_ in their eyes that told her that they had been through hell and back, multiple times, but they were _alive_. The Blue Sky Warrior, Queen Hinoka. The Perfect Expert, King Subaki. She didn't have to act like a little girl. She was their age. She was their peer, technically, by now. But something inside of her broke.

Almost as if she was a child again, she threw herself into their arms and cried.

Cordelia had vanished, and Caeldori had reappeared as if the dam holding her back had burst.

“Mother… Father…”

Once she was all cried out, she called her younger daughter -- also Severa, though she noticed that her parents had called her older daughter 'Selena' -- and Stahl so that she could introduce them.

"We put you here so that you could live a life away from war," Hinoka said tiredly. "So that you would never have to fight. And yet..."

"And yet if I hadn't fought, this world would have been destroyed, Mother," Caeldori pointed out. "I couldn't do _nothing_. Not when this was my _home_." Ylisse was her home, far more than Hoshido would be. Her home consisted of Stahl and Severa (both Severas, though the older Severa was going back to Nohr to be Queen; in some small way, she was relieved that her daughter had married a prince despite supposedly being a commoner like she had dreamed as a child).

“How bad was it?” Subaki asked her.

Caeldori shook her head. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll tell you later.”

Now was not the time to talk about the wars versus Plegia, Valm, and Grima. She held her parents close for a while, before smiling at them and introducing her family.

* * *

There was the matter of Hoshido's throne.

By birthright, it was Caeldori's. And Princess Caeldori was still eager to go back to the country that she should have been raised in, to see the land of her birth, even if it was ravaged by war.

But Cordelia protested. Ylisse was her home, she had been raised here, she had had her family here, she had lived and breathed and fought for Ylisse.

The decision would have been easier had her cousin agreed to take the throne (her cousin! Her cousin had been a Shepherd with her the whole time! ...But while they had gotten along, they hadn't been the best of friends). But Tharja (or Rhajat) didn't want it either.

And neither Ryoma nor Takumi had had any heirs before they had died.

"You don't have to make the decision right away," Hinoka said to her. "You're about our age after all, and your father and I did hope to have another child one day. But... if you, Stahl, and Severa want to move back to Hoshido, you and Severa are still contenders."

"Would it not be odd for the same person to be the Queen of both countries?" Caeldori pointed out.

"Perhaps," Hinoka said, shrugging. "You're going to have to explain how that happened one day, by the way. Just please keep us in mind... and we'll come visit more often this time. I promise."

Subaki, who had been holding Severa on his shoulders while he chatted with Stahl, finally set the little girl down (she protested quite loudly to 'Grandpa Baki' when he did so, much to the amusement of Caeldori and the chagrin of older Severa), and came over to hug her tightly.

"We love you, darling," he told her. "I'm so sorry that we left you alone for so long, but that won't be happening again."

Caeldori's eyes prickled with tears, but she forced them back as she pressed her cheek against her father's and then pulled away. “I know. I believe you.”

"We'll see you soon, Caeldy," Subaki assured her, kissing her forehead before nodding at Hinoka.

Not for the first time, Caeldori watched her parents leave, this time with older Severa's family. Stahl wrapped his arm around her shoulders and squeezed it, and little Severa grabbed her hand, pouting because everyone had left. She smiled at the two of them, preparing to be Cordelia again.

And this time, when Cordelia returned, Caeldori didn't leave.

**Author's Note:**

>  **Subaki/Hinoka:** Probably my OTP for them both on Birthright. Plus we get Caeldori's bright red hair!
> 
>  **Stahl/Cordelia:** I'm extremely picky with my Cordelia pairings because the vast majority are just... so BAD. This one, however, was pretty cute in my opinion.
> 
>  **Xander/Selena:** This is me self-indulging. I don't like the super popular Xander/Charlotte too much, and I'm picky with Xander's pairings, and also the thought of Selena becoming royalty while Odin (who is royalty) and Laslow (who can be royalty if he's Chrom!Inigo) necessarily don't in Nohr is hilarious to me.
> 
>  **Chrom's Rescue:** This refers to the noodle incident in the Ricken & Cordelia B-Support where Chrom saved Cordelia's life, which caused her to become infatuated with him. For this particular story, that is the SAME incident that occurs in Caeldori's Paralogue in Birthright/Revelation -- but since this is Conquest, Subaki wasn't there to save her.


End file.
